Ghislaine Maxwell documents just released including Jeffrey Epstein emails
After Ghislaine Maxwell was accused of assisting Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of minors by helping to recruit and groom victims while knowing they were underage, she was then arrested by the FBI at the beginning of the month. Since then, she faced her first hearing in New York on 14 July and was denied bail.
Now, documents about dealings between Maxwell and Epstein have just been publicly released (on Thursday 30 July) by a US court.
What did Ghislaine Maxwell’s documents contain?
Among the documents released were email correspondence between Maxwell and Epstein in early 2015, who were identified respectively as ‘jeffrey E’ and either ‘Gmax’ or ‘G Maxwell’, including an email in which Epstein told Maxwell she had “done nothing wrong,” and urged her to “go outside, head high, not as an escaping convict. go to parties. deal with it.”
Judge Loretta Preska had ordered the materials’ release by Thursday, saying the public’s right to see them outweighed Maxwell’s interests in keeping them under seal.
Although most of the documents were revealed to the public, two depositions remain under seal after Maxwell filed an emergency motion with the federal appeals court in Manhattan to keep them from becoming public. We won’t know whether the last two materials will be revealed before Monday 3 August at least.
What do we know about those two depositions left?
Maxwell’s lawyers have said that in one of those depositions, which was filed in April 2016, Maxwell was asked “intrusive” questions concerning her sex life, and that its release could make it “difficult if not impossible” to get a fair trial. The second is a deposition by an unnamed Epstein accuser.
The documents released on Thursday and the depositions that remain sealed were part of the now-settled 2015 civil defamation lawsuit against Maxwell by Virginia Giuffre, who said she was underage when Epstein kept her as a “sex slave” with Maxwell’s assistance.
What's next for Ghislaine Maxwell?
Maxwell has been held in a Brooklyn jail and is awaiting her criminal trial which is scheduled for next July.
